Author Topic: Pseudopod 168: El Dentisto que Corta  (Read 23717 times)

goatkeeper

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Reply #50 on: December 10, 2009, 08:00:57 PM
I really wanted to interpret the ending this way.  In fact, I listened to the ending twice hoping I would, but it just seems too ambiguous. 


I really don't think there's anything ambiguous about the ending. I mean, I could see your point, if the entire story hadn't been designed to establish that the narrator has no ability to tell what the hell is going on around him. The fact that he's interpreting it one way more or less assures us that the opposite is true.

It's a good point, but the Mayans are aso established as being unable to tell what is going on around them.  They don't have a clue-- just because he's a got a medical book they sit back and watch him remove organs, snip her innards arbitrarily, finger rape her and then pour tequila in her body cavity.   Their faith in him is as blind as poor Caesar's.
I couldn't quite buy them saying "oh no, she's dead!  let's exact vengeance!" after they were just oblivious enough to allow/watch him do all of it.




eytanz

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Reply #51 on: December 10, 2009, 09:17:02 PM
I really wanted to interpret the ending this way.  In fact, I listened to the ending twice hoping I would, but it just seems too ambiguous. 


I really don't think there's anything ambiguous about the ending. I mean, I could see your point, if the entire story hadn't been designed to establish that the narrator has no ability to tell what the hell is going on around him. The fact that he's interpreting it one way more or less assures us that the opposite is true.

It's a good point, but the Mayans are aso established as being unable to tell what is going on around them.  They don't have a clue-- just because he's a got a medical book they sit back and watch him remove organs, snip her innards arbitrarily, finger rape her and then pour tequila in her body cavity.   Their faith in him is as blind as poor Caesar's.

That's not the impression I got from the story. The impression I got was that they were passive, but observant - they were basically waiting to see what he was doing. And note that the ending suggests (though I don't think it is clear on this) that the girl-demon was summoned in the body of the girl he was working on. I got the impression that they basically were thinking "he's killed her, lets wait until he moves away and then she can get her revenge" - and since there were indications that they sacrifice humans to their gods, maybe the girl was doomed anyway.
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Jim Bihyeh

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Reply #52 on: December 11, 2009, 06:48:11 PM

Yes, I also felt the patients (and victims) were as passive as any of Conrad's Africans in "Heart of Darkness." This is necessary for the protagonist's con, of course, though it seemed a little odd that their rituals would come back to "get" the white, Christian witch-doctor (a neat reversal here) when they didn't seem to have much of a presence earlier. I don't know if that's the writer's fault, seeing as how the DENTISTO doesn't speak Spanish and has never bothered to learn, so there's no way the Mayans would be communicating with him.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the horror that played out here. It felt real, visceral, and shocking. I believed - by the end - that this self-serving prick has many cousins in the Third World operating their rusty saws as I sit here typing on this forum...

The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own. But as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea...